Charles University Research Evaluation Executive Summary Table of contents: INTRODUCTION 4 SUMMARY OF ASSESSMENT OF THE UNITS 7 Catholic Theological Faculty 7 Protestant Theological Faculty 7 Hussite Theological Faculty 7 Faculty of Law 8 Medicine and Medical Sciences - General comments 9 First Faculty of Medicine 10 Second Faculty of Medicine 11 Third Faculty of Medicine 12 Faculty of Medicine in Plzeň 13 Faculty of Medicine in Hradec Králové 14 Faculty of Pharmacy in Hradec Králové 15 Faculty of Arts 17 Faculty of Science 17 Faculty of Mathematics and Physics 18 Faculty of Education 18 Faculty of Social Sciences 19 Faculty of Physical Education and Sport 20 Faculty of Humanities 21 Institute of the History of Charles University and Archive of Charles University 22 Center for Theoretical Study 22 Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education 23 Environment Center 24 GENERAL RECOMMENDATIONS 25 1. Publication profile 25 2. Research Strategy 26 3. PhD programmes and students 26 4. Internal university cooperation 27 5. Internationalization 28 6. Research infrastructure and facilities 28 7. Gender 29 8. Fragmentation 29 2 FRAGMENTATION 30 Some Observations 30 Fragmentation and Splintering 32 Scientific Policy 35 3 INTRODUCTION Charles University is a dynamic institution that continuously strives to increase the quality of research, development, innovation, education, social impact as well as artistic and other creative activities. This evaluation is an important tool for achieving an international standard of research excellence, and for strengthening the position of the university as a prestigious European research institution. The objective of the evaluation has been twofold: a) to obtain accurate and impartial information on the quality of research at the university through national and international benchmarking, the intention of this evaluation was not to compare the CU units between each other; and b) to recommend the course of future development of the university based on the information obtained. The Board offers here a summary but strongly urges all stakeholders and interested parties to read the full reports. Charles University officially started this process to evaluate the quality of its research more than two years ago, based on the Strategy for Evaluating Creative Activities at Charles University (Rector´s Measure No. 44/2018, amended by Rector´s Measure No. 8/2019). The current evaluation covering the period 2014-2018 is the first attempt to evaluate comprehensively the research activities of the whole university. It is intended to be repeated every five years. As with many projects, this evaluation has encountered a variety of challenges, some of which could be expected, and some of which were unpredictable. First, the most important phase of the evaluation process took place during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, some aspects of the review process took longer than expected. Second, because of the pandemic, evaluation bodies held meetings exclusively online. This included meetings with the representatives of the faculties which would have been preferable in person. Third, and most important, it became evident to the Board that different fields have different evaluation cultures and visions of excellence. These differences can be broadly aggregated into two groups of fields. One group, including medicine, the natural sciences, economics, political science and some of the other social sciences, rely on the publication of articles in peer-refereed journals with international prominence for measuring the quality of their research activities. The other group of fields, including the humanities, law, and some of the social sciences, emphasize the reception of books and other publications domestically and on the national and international reputation of scholars for measuring the quality of their research activities. This difference means that in the first group of fields the evaluation focused primarily on research output in the evaluation period based on bibliometric measures, while the evaluation of the second group of fields relied more heavily on peer review of the best outputs offered by each field to represent their research activities. The work of the Board reflects our best efforts to honor and respect these different cultures of academic excellence. Evaluations of areas and fields thus always measure performance of CU relative to benchmark universities, and should not be used for within-university comparisons. 4 Despite these challenges, we are confident that this large and complex project has been a success. We also believe that all stakeholders in this process -- evaluators, faculty coordinators, and administrative support staff -- have obtained valuable experience that will inform future evaluations and amplify their impact. Three types of bodies participated in the evaluation process: the Research Evaluation Board whose members were nominated by the International Board of the University and by the partner universities within the 4EU+ network; four Expert Panels established on the advice of the Research Evaluation Board organized by research areas; and many individual reviewers approved by the panels. The Research Evaluation Board has managed the evaluation process. It is also responsible for this final “Research Evaluation Executive Summary” report. The Board set the evaluation parameters and supervised the evaluation process; its members also chaired the Expert Panels and approved their membership. The Board´s main task was the assessment and grading of the units (faculties and institutes) in the final phase of the process. The Board was composed of 18 academics from universities from around the world, plus five internal members who acted as observers of the process. There were four Expert Panels. Each was responsible for the assessment of one of the following research areas: Arts and Humanities (HUM), Social Sciences (SOC), Medical and Health Sciences (MED) and Natural Sciences (SCI). A particularly challenging aspect of the work of the Panels was to ensure that the peer review was completed comprehensively, with each output receiving two high-quality reviews. This was challenging because of the high number of reviewers needed, as well as the high number of outputs written in Czech. Altogether the panels analyzed the data and produced reports for 22 research areas, including grades for the individual areas and fields. There were, in total, seventy-three panellists involved in the process, most of whom were experts from foreign universities. More than 700 reviewers were secured to provide written reviews for individual research outcomes chosen by the units that were under evaluation. The purpose of the review of selected outputs by independent international experts was to evaluate the extent to which these outputs -- provided by the units as representing their best work -- meet international and national standards of excellence in the field. The evaluation was based on five main evaluation tools: (1) The evaluators were provided with basic research indicators such as the number of persons involved in research, the number of research outputs, lists of grants and projects, lists of study programmes as well as the number of students and graduates in these programmes. (2) Faculties and institutes produced extensive self-evaluation reports. (3) Experts in scientometrics prepared an extensive bibliometric analysis and comparison of the benchmark institutions. (4) The peer review of selected outputs, described above, provided a window on the best outputs in each 5 field. (5) Finally, the evaluation was informed by site visits across the many units and faculties at Charles University. Unfortunately, only one face-to-face meeting of the Board was held in June 2019. The main outcomes of the evaluation process are the Area and Field Reports and Unit Reports, accompanied by assessed grades. It is important to reiterate that the individual faculties and fields are evaluated in comparison to similar units at the international benchmark institutions. They are not evaluated in comparison to one another. We appreciate that during the whole process the faculties and institutes shared their views with members of the Board and panels -- and commented on both the evaluation procedures and the reports. As evaluators we are grateful for their feedback, which is an integral and important part of the outcome of this review. In this report, we provide a brief summary of the assessment of the faculties and institutes along with recommendations for how to incentivize and foster an accelerating trajectory of research excellence at Charles University. 6 SUMMARY OF ASSESSMENT OF THE UNITS This is a summary of the assessment of the faculties and institutes of Charles University (henceforth referred to as “the units”), accompanied by a final grade and its justification. Detailed assessment of each unit can be found in the Unit Reports. Catholic Theological Faculty KTF has been evaluated in four fields: Theology with C as its main field, History of Arts with B as its second strongest field, History with B and Philosophy and Ethics with C+. While the peer review brought forth very high and high grades, all panels note that too little effort is placed on international (especially high-impact) publications. There were no major international grant holders at KTF during the evaluation period, however the unit has an increasing tendency in obtaining funding from national grant sources. The evaluation revealed a great gap between